


For What We Are About To Receive

by Daegaer



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Anthropomorphic Personifications, High School AU, M/M, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-23
Updated: 2010-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-07 12:09:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rather than eat the school food, Poland makes Lithuania a cute lunch; Prussia takes exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For What We Are About To Receive

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Liet/Pol Secret Santa Exchange, for a prompt: _Poland makes Lithuania a cute lunch they eat in the school cafeteria_. Gakuen AU.
> 
> Thank you to Puddingcat for beta-reading!

Lithuania stared in determined horror at the main dish the school cafeteria was providing. The meat was greyish, and the sauce was a disturbing shade of red that no tomato had ever been in nature. It was probably edible, he thought. The school couldn't get away with serving actually inedible food. He hoped. If only Prussia hadn't decided to build a bomb as a science project, or if he had only built it somewhere other than the kitchen – Lithuania sighed, wondering when the usual dinner ladies would be discharged from hospital and could come back to work. As he was screwing up his courage to ask for a serving of the toxic-looking food, a weight bounced into his back, and two arms came round his waist.

"Hey, Liet," Poland said, balancing his chin on Lithuania's shoulder. "You're not, like, going to eat that, are you?"

"It's what they have," Lithuania said glumly. "I think they're meant to be meatballs, though I really don't know what sort of meat."

"They're actual balls," Poland giggled. "Like, what's left over after sheep get neutered." He paused. "Do sheep get neutered? Anyway, that's totally what they are."

"That doesn't help me in wanting lunch."

"Good, because if you ate them you'd be, like, doing some sheep a sexual favour. You don't want to do that."

Lithuania laughed. "Some dead sheep."

"Yeah, that's even grosser. Stop thinking about nibbling some dead sheep's balls, Liet, you're gross. I have something better," Poland sing-songed. He tightened his arms. "Open your mouth and close your eyes and I'll give you a nice surprise."

"Nicer than sheep's balls?"

"_Way_ nicer," Poland said in his ear, then, "Ugh, incoming asshole on your right."

He let go of Lithuania's waist and stepped away, leaving his back feeling suddenly cold. Lithuania glanced over to see Prussia and Germany coming their way, clearly intent on getting lunch before the real rush began.

"Excuse us, ladies," Prussia said grinning meanly as he stepped in front of Lithuania. "Real men in need of food here."

"Huh, where?" Poland muttered.

"Ah, what my brother meant –" Germany started, his face starting to redden.

"What I _meant_," Prussia said, "was that these girls should either get some food or bugger off and worry about their diets somewhere else until they grow a pair and remember that they should act like guys." He smiled sweetly. "Just one pair between you, that'd be a start."

"We beat your ass in middle school, we can do it again," Poland snapped. "Liet knows that."

"But that was before you got your special womanly times, sweetie," Prussia said in loud sympathy. "Try it now and your tampon might fall out."

"You're so gross," Poland said. "C'mon, Liet."

"Prussia!" Germany snapped, his face now so red it clashed horribly with his royal blue blazer. "Don't be so vulgar! There are _girls_ over there." He nodded to where Hungary and Liechtenstein stood by the doors.

"Hey, they'd agree," Prussia said cheerfully. "It's a bitch when the tampon falls out, right, girls?" he called, and laughed at their looks of disgust. "Hey, West," he said to Germany, "look what they're serving for lunch – did you have your period all over the food, Poland?"

"You stay and stuff your mouth full of balls," Poland said. "Let's go, Liet."

Lithuania let himself be led away; staying in the vicinity of a Prussia armed with copious amounts of tomato sauce and dubious food of a shape good for throwing was _not_ sensible. Poland kept a tight grip on his hand, as though afraid he'd flee. Lithuania squeezed his fingers and got a cheeky, brilliant smile in response. They'd known each other since elementary school, neither of them was going to run away. _Especially not now_, Lithuania thought, going a little pink as he mentally replayed the moment he had realised that Poland – always affectionate and ready with a hug – liked him as more than a friend to play football and to study with. He was lucky Poland was braver than him, he thought - _he'd_ never have had the nerve to risk a kiss.

Poland took a seat at the furthest table, the one that people rarely wanted to sit at, for the window behind it let in a draught, and the table itself was oddly small and too narrow for lanky teenagers to sit at in comfort. Poland just smiled at his querying look and began to take little boxes out of his backpack. They were brightly coloured plastic, with pictures of animals and flowers on the lids.

"I've been working totally hard in Home Ec," Poland said. "You should come back." He grinned at Lithuania's expression. "I'm not the only boy there, you know, you wouldn't look like a total girl. Anyway, we had to, like, appreciate each other's cultures through food, and Belgium made us eat a horse – seriously, Liet, and she only told us afterwards, and then Japan taught us how to make cute bento lunches. So I made us lunch! But not horse, 'cos I didn't think you'd like it, though maybe I was wrong, the way you were totally eyeing up those sheep balls." As he talked he opened the boxes, displaying a variety of carefully made rice balls and tiny, bite-sized morsels of food.

"Wow," Lithuania said. "That's really impressive."

Poland beamed at him and handed him a pair of disposable chopsticks. "I forgot to buy cute ones in time," he said. "But I'm totally getting them. Those are little potato pancakes with meat stuffing," he added, pointing to some of the food, "those are onigiri, which are just, like, rice balls –"

"How did you make them look like Hello Kitty?" Lithuania said.

"I had to mess around with so much seaweed! Anyway, the first ones were a disaster, they were like, I don't know, Kitty's evil cousin or something, but then I got the eyes and whiskers right."

"Seaweed," Lithuania mused.

"Dude, you'll eat it and like it."

"And these little triangles?" Lithuania said, looking at what appeared to be tiny fried sandwiches.

"Stuffed fishcakes, sort of, which you will also eat and like, and those are prawns. And California rolls, which Japan ranted about, like, a lot, but finally showed us how to make as long as we agreed they're not real Japanese food." Poland pulled his chair in close to the table and smiled beatifically as Lithuania worked out why he'd wanted to sit there. Lithuania went a little pink again, and pulled his own chair closer so he could trap Poland's knee between his own, and felt the answering pressure as Poland did the same to him.

"Thank you," he said, wondering where he should start.

"You have to say _Itadakimasu_, Japan was totally insistent."

"Itadakimasu," Lithuania parroted and carefully picked up one of the fishcakes. He nibbled at it and smiled in pleasure; it was really good. He tried one of each item as Poland looked more and more pleased. "You need to eat some of this too," Lithuania laughed and Poland took up a California roll in far more practiced a motion than he had managed.

"Good God, you really _are_ girls," Prussia's unwelcome voice said behind Lithuania's head. He reached over and snatched up the lid of one of the boxes. "Oooh, cute little bunnikins! And your food is cute too – just tell me, when you woke up and found your dicks had fallen off, what was it like?"

"Get lost," Poland said. "And give me back my bento box lid."

"Hah. Listen to him! His _bento_ box. Pathetic. I'm telling you this as a favour, Poland, someone less tolerant and open-minded than me could come over here, then you'd really know what it's like to be laughed at. Just eat cheese sandwiches or something and – are you wearing nail polish?"

"It's really flattering, don't you think?" Poland said, spreading out his hand. He lost the scowl and looked simply pleased that someone had noticed his care with his appearance.

Lithuania wondered how he hadn't seen the pale pink shine on Poland's nails till then. He also wondered how hard he should hit Prussia for being an idiot. As he was tensing to rise he felt Poland's knees squeeze his once-twice-three times. He wasn't sure what he was being told, but he was being told _something,_ so Lithuania kept his seat, quiet and meek.

"OK," Poland said peaceably, smiling up at Prussia with no hint of challenge, just a schoolboy looking at a good friend. "I'm, like, a girl and I'm a nail-polish wearing disgrace to the male sex. Please give me back my girly lunch box lid."

Prussia gaped at him, as if he couldn't work out what to do with someone who not only wasn't going to rise to his bait, but seemed to consider his bait a yummy little treat no one could find objectionable. He glared at them both; Lithuania followed Poland's lead in keeping his face mild and friendly, as if no one had noticed Prussia's bullying. After another moment Prussia put the box lid down on the table, looking vaguely confused.

"I'm just saying that for your own good," he said in a more pleasant tone of voice. "You two don't want to get a name as freaks and end up with no friends, do you?"

He went back to the large table totally empty of diners but for him and Germany, and swiped several of his brother's fries as he sat down, laughing harshly at Germany's resigned protests. Poland rolled his eyes in disgust.

"Jeez, projecting much?" he muttered. "Even your _brother_ can't stand you."

His smile came back as he picked up a crispy battered prawn and fed it to Lithuania. Lithuania responded with one of the little fishcakes, finding the food was even tastier if they fed it to each other. Hungary and Liechtenstein came over, smiling.

"Your lunch is so cute!" Liechtenstein said happily, going a little pink as they smiled at her.

"These are good," Hungary said, sitting on the table beside Poland, and picking up one of the bento boxes. "Next time you're going into town let me know and I'll go with you and buy some as well."

"Sure!" Poland said, grinning at her. "We should all go, like, next week; we could go to a movie after shopping."

"Cool," Hungary said. "Well, back to the scarlet blobs of lunchtime horror we must go –" She winked at Poland, and led Liechtenstein back to their table.

Lithuania was glad for the show of support; Hungary was very popular and her approval of the bento boxes would more than cancel out Prussia's bullying. Even people who might want to follow Prussia's lead would think twice before laughing too much at people Hungary liked. However, he wished they were eating somewhere more private so he could kiss Poland without half the school passing comment. For the moment he contented himself with squeezing Poland's knee between his own and feeling answering pressure in response.

"Thank you for lunch," he said. "It's really good."

"Your turn tomorrow," Poland said, "unless you, like, _like_ what they'll do to macaroni cheese."

They both shuddered.

"I can't promise it'll be as good as yours, but it'll definitely be better than _that_," Lithuania said. He went pink as he added, "If it's a nice day, what do you think of eating it outside? Somewhere quiet?"

"That's a totally good idea," Poland said, smiling as he packed his boxes away again. "In fact, we should go out now just to find somewhere nice, so we don't waste any time tomorrow. We'd have enough time for fifteen minutes down in the wood, if we hurried – "

Lithuania stood up so quickly he almost knocked the table over. On their way out of the room Poland linked his arm, close and warm. Prussia gave them a sour look, but didn't say anything, his attention taken up with the more convenient target of his unhappy, blushing brother. Other people looked but didn't start trouble, and Hungary and the other girls smiled at them. Italy gave them a thumbs-up as he went on a mission of mercy to rescue Germany. Lithuania and Poland left the cafeteria grinning widely, heads held high; _Don't let this ever change_, Lithuania thought, and kissed the side of Poland's head as the doors started closing behind them.

All their friends cheered.


End file.
